Primer On Halabja:

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Iraqi use of chemical weapons in Halabja, a Kurdish town in Northern Iraq. As I've talked with people about Halabja, it's become clear that while the popular press has fostered a general appreciation that the Hussein regime has used chemical weapons on its own people, few appreciate the scope or the consequences of the campaign. Indeed, few people know that Hussein killed over 5,000 of his own citizens in Halabja, and that in the larger Anfal campaign over 200 villages and nearly 25,000 people were victims of chemical weapons.

Accordingly I'm offering a brief primer here. First, the basic facts:

Halabja is a small town in the governorate of Sualimaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan. It lies 250 km north-east of Baghdad and 11 kilometers from the Iranian border.

The attack on the town, which had roughly 45,000 residents at the time, occurred in the early hours of March 16, 1988.

The attack still stands as the largest use of chemical weapons on a civilian population in history.

The Iraqis used a "cocktail" of mustard gas (which affects skin, eyes and the membranes of the nose, throat and lungs), and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX. The chemicals to which the people were exposed drenched their skin and clothes, affected their respiratory tracts and eyes and contaminated their water and food. Many people simply fell dead where they were, immediate casualties of the attack.

Casualty estimates stand at 5,000 dead, 10,000 injured, although these estimates to not account for long-term health effects on survivors, which many estimate to be severe (see the Christine Gosden link below).

The web offers a large volume of material on Halabja, but here some links I recommend:

The Kurdistan Regional Government presents a good overview of Halabja here, which includes a link to a slide show of photos of the aftermath which I'll note as difficult viewing.

Human Rights Watch offers a report on the Anfal Campaign, of which Halabja was a part, here. In addition to documenting examples of chemical weapon use in the Appendix, the report also documents numerous mass killings and disappearances by Iraqi forces.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party offers an overview of Halabja here, including poetry and songs about the attack ... but note that the page includes a number of graphic photos of victims.

Christine Gosden, a professor of medical genetics, went to Halabja 10 years after the attack to explore the long-term consequences on the population. The Washington Post published her chilling story shortly thereafter, which you can read here. In it, she notes:

What I found was far worse than anything I had suspected, devastating problems occurring 10 years after the attack. These chemicals seriously affected people's eyes and respiratory and neurological systems. Many became blind. Skin disorders which involve severe scarring are frequent, and many progress to skin cancer. Working in conjunction with the doctors in the area, I compared the frequency of these conditions such as infertility, congenital malformations and cancers (including skin, head, neck, respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, breast and childhood cancers) in those who were in Halabja at the time with an unexposed population from a city in the same region. We found the frequencies in Halabja are at least three to four times greater, even 10 years after the attack. An increasing number of children are dying each year of leukemias and lymphomas. The cancers tend to occur in much younger people in Halabja than elsewhere, and many people have aggressive tumors, so that mortality rates are high. No chemotherapy or radiotherapy is available in this region.

She also published a follow-up article in the Post one year later, which you can read here.

In 1989 the Physicians for Human Rights issued a report of a medical mission to Turkish Kurdistan, titled Winds of Death. You can view the full report here. This is an excellent summary; required reading. There is also a documentary about this mission, also titled Winds of Death, but I was unable to learn much more about the film on the web. If I find it, I'll post an update.

It shouldn't pass unnoticed that it's these same chemical weapons for which Iraq has been unable to evidence destruction or disarmament. Indeed, the only thing Iraq has been able to demonstrate, is their use.